Theta Waves Book 1 (Episodes 1-3) by Thea Atkinson

such a thing as forgiveness in these times, I forgive you."
    She twisted out of his arms. "Forgive me? You've got it all wrong."
    "Do I?" He looked confused. "I saw her, felt her pain, knew her desires. How can I have it wrong?"
    Theda stared at him. She wasn't sure now what he'd experienced and that made her question the whole vision. She always brought her johns straight to the life that was the core of their being. The life that caused them the most pain, created the most resonance in them because that was the ride that would earn her the next trick. Despite the fact that it was the only crime in new Earth, that she risked her life with each trick, she walked it with them, knew it with them, lived it with them. It had always been about earning enough to survive, never about caring what happened to them after. She thought with the god gone, evolution was impossible. She never once took the time to think those tricks were the ones that enabled the greatest change.
    She hung her head, thinking back to Ezekiel's re-vision, letting the memories of that lifetime wash back over her, feel the pain and anguish. She'd not given it much thought before. This last re-vision she'd been so close to the memory that it felt like her own. It felt familiar, too familiar. It had only been the generous amount of godspit in her system that enabled her to cushion herself from the resulting damage.
    She stepped away from Ezekiel, this time thinking she really would run. "Good God," she said, forgetting for a moment that the word was enough to prove guilt of religion mongering. "You were her; you were Cathrin."
    He nodded. "I thought you understood that."
    "I should have," she said. "But it was too close. Too familiar. It felt like my own."
    "Theda?" He reached for her, trying to wrap his fingers around her elbow but she danced away.
    "Theda stop; tell me, why didn't the mayor see it?"
    Her mind reeled, trying to process what had happened to her. Why she would think it was her own past she'd seen. "What?" She asked distracted. "What do you mean?"
    "I mean the mayor saw nothing when his finger was in your mouth. That's why he made me do it, remember?"
    Still pacing, flapping her arms because the question was immaterial at the moment. She had more pressing things on her mind. "The godspit. I had too much in me; there's no way he would see anything because I wasn't conscious enough."
    She'd been conscious enough for Ezekiel's, though. The remembrance created a pain so visceral, she thought she could poke at it if she pressed into her sternum hard enough. It was too close. Too close to merely be a walk-through.
    She started to spin in place, thinking she needed to get out, thinking she needed to find some godspit to reel her back in from this freefall, to give her the good old sense of grounding that only ecstasy could offer.
    She felt his hands on her arms, but she shook him off. She didn't want to look at him right now. She didn't want to think about anything. She didn't want to think about the fact that if that lifetime had been so familiar, she must have been part of it.
    Because if she wasn't Cathrin in his re-vision, then just who the hell had she been?
    The End
     
    Look for episode 2: Dragon
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    DRAGON
    EPISODE Two
     
     

Theda didn't know who she'd been in the lifetime that she read for Ezekiel, but she knew who she was now, and that chick didn't like the feeling of freefall, of being out of control, of suddenly caring. It had been 48 hours or more since she'd taken her last godspit smear, and since then, she'd been abducted from her grotto beneath the bridge, charged with religion mongering in a post-apocalyptic, god-hating world, and been forced to provide a vision for the man who stood in front of her to prove religion mongering was exactly what she'd been doing. This man--Ezekiel--was attractive in a gut-wrenching sort of way she had to admit that, but he was also the one completely